Messing with Pixel 3 Night Mode on the Essential PH-1

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 12/12/2018 at 15:33 • Filed to: None

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Since there’s a long and rich history of people !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the signature new feature of the Pixel 3 lineup, Night Mode, is now available to phones that can run the GCam port.

I took both of these photos basically standing there hand-holding the phone, no tripod, no flash, just available light. They’ve been lightly edited in Snapseed. The one of the   !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on Connecticut Ave is a little cropped.

Are they immaculate, perfect, DSLR-quality photos? Not necessarily, but damn good for hand holding a phone and not making any special accommodations for the photo. Oh, I guess I did crouch down low to get the angle of my car and the apartment building where a friend lived until he moved in with his gf a couple months ago.

Technically this doesn’t magically turn the Essential camera into a Pixel 3, mainly because the Essential camera doesn’t have optical image stabilization, and while a lot of Night Mode is a software trick, it also does some tricks with the image stabilization to make Night Mode even better. But the OG Pixel phones also don’t have OIS, so there’s an OIS-free version of Night Mode in the app that lets Night Mode work on a larger variety of phones. Neat.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > Textured Soy Protein 12/12/2018 at 15:43

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Great pictures for a camera phone! I’ve got the original Pixel XL and I’m very damn impressed with night mode. I almost always take two pictures just so I can see the dramatic difference it makes, haha.

Interesting thing is that it can make scenes look like they were taken with MUCH more light than there actually is. My picture below (rented Silverado) has only dim street lights and moon light. I thought the blue glow on the snow looked really cool, so I decided to fire up night mode!

Textured Soy Protein > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 12/12/2018 at 16:24

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The pic with the apartment building I actually did some tweaking to make the apartment building darker. 

Lokiparts > Textured Soy Protein 12/13/2018 at 09:18

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I actually have a Pixel3 and the first time I tried the night shot mode it was mind-blowing. I agree it’s not going to be replacing a proper DLSR anytime soon... but you can definitely get a good idea of where digital photography is heading in the future.

Here is a before and after that I took the other day. Nothing special just taking a picture of my neighbors house across the street with and without night shot enabled.

The only light in this is from those two porch lights and a street light that’s like a block away. These photos have not been edited at all. I couldn’t believe how much detail it picked up.